The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
Strategic foresight is the structured exploration of plausible futures to inform present decisions. It sits between research and governance: it uses evidence and models, but its value lies in how institutions use it. This page, part of Foresight Nexus at The Global Risks Forum (GRF), defines the discipline, explains its significance for public and institutional governance and sets out the institutional issues that determine whether foresight changes anything.
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GeographyFor discipline and institutional issues, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, flood water and night lights, framed on the Arctic; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
The Foresight Nexus field covers strategic foresight, multiple futures, institutional anticipation and long-horizon public learning. Experts in it study questions such as horizon scanning and strategic scenarios, with methods such as scenario design and stress testing as well as forecasting and time-series analysis. Its counterparts at GCRI and GRA look at the same systems through science and finance.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Foresight treats the future as plural. Rather than a single forecast, it develops several plausible futures and asks how strategies would perform in each. Practitioners distinguish between probable futures, which extrapolate current trends; plausible futures, which could arise from known forces; and possible futures, which include surprises. The discipline draws on futures studies, strategic planning, systems thinking and decision science.
Foresight differs from forecasting. Forecasting estimates the likely value of a quantity, such as demand or temperature, where data and models support it. Foresight is used where uncertainty is too deep for reliable probabilities, and it helps institutions prepare for futures they would otherwise dismiss.
Budget and electoral cycles reward attention to the present, so long-horizon risks are discounted.
Foresight units often sit apart from the decisions they are meant to inform. See foresight in decisions.
Institutions tend to see futures that confirm existing strategy, so dissenting signals are filtered out.
When no one is responsible for acting on a scenario, warnings are noted and then forgotten.
Futures affect people who are not in the room, including future generations. See future generations.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Scenario | A structured description of a plausible alternative future used to test strategy, carrying no probability. |
| Anticipatory governance | Using foresight systematically in policy-making and institutions so they can act on emerging change. |
| Strategic foresight | A structured and systematic way of using ideas about the future to anticipate and prepare for change, in OECD usage. |
| Systemic risk | Risk arising from interconnections, where failure in one part can cascade through a whole system. |
Foresight supports risk management by widening the range of risks considered, and it relies on systems science to understand how change propagates. At The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), Systemic Risk Management at The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) and Systems Science and Modelling at The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) develop these sciences; at The Global Risks Alliance (GRA), Financial Stability at The Global Risks Alliance (GRA) builds shared industry understanding of long-horizon financial shocks. Who decides on the basis of foresight is set out on decision-rights context.
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